Land Of The Pretend
by dancing-with-angels99
Summary: Eighteen year old Wendy Darling struggles with the trials and tribulations of the adult world. Can her childhood friend, Peter Pan, come and save her from growing up? Or will she have the opposite effect on him? Read to find out.


"Stars are beautiful, but they may not take an active part in anything. They must just look on forever."  
- J. .

Wendy Darling liked to think she was a sensible girl. She certainly appeared to be one.

Her mother, however, would beg to differ, as would her many brothers, and perhaps even Nana, who, although in her old age, was an excellent nurse to the children, and that, no one could deny, not even Mr Darling, who was still rather inclined to believe that dogs were more suited as pets than nannys.

Whenever Wendy remarked to house guests or visitors that she considered herself fairly sensible and well mannered, they would often remark that she was awfully grownup. This would of course mean a great deal to her mother and father, who considered a compliment of this sort to be an honor coming from a duke or duchess.  
Wendy, however, resented this fiercely.  
There were of course certain perks to growing up. Getting her own room had been hard at first. She had been used to company in the nursery, and although Aunt Millicent insisted that all ladies were in dire need of their own living quarters, the first few nights had been particularly lonely and quiet.  
But then, to appease her daughter's stubborn nature, Mrs Darling had persuaded her husband to purchase a writing desk, a quill hand writing pen and some luxury cream coloured paper from Mr Hardy's down the road.  
Wendy had let them sit alone in the corner of her room on the first few nights, overcome with childish pettyness and spite.  
But after she found herself growing tired of endless parties and dinners, she began retiring to her room very early in the evening, and, out of pure boredom, started to write.  
Once she had started, she could simply not stop, and although, upon inspection, many of her tales consisted of pirates and mermaids, they were very well written and both her parents were pleased she had found a hobby.

John Darling also liked to think he was sensible. Although in completely different context.  
John's idea of sensibility was law and books on court and wearing glass and being serious all the time.  
He didn't have that much of an imagination, and found the idea of Wendy writing romantic novels and poetry most preposterous. He was growing up to be a most respectable man indeed, but he believed very strongly in rational thinking and had somehow convinced himself that Neverland had been a dream of most startling accuracy and that the lost boys had simply been orphans who the Darling family had taken in out of the kindness of their hearts.  
Of course, nobody opposed him, Mr and Mrs Darling had only the faintest idea of what exactly the children had been doing or where they had been on that fateful night,  
Michael and the lost boys were too young and ignorant to worry of such things, although without any new stories, it would be easy to suppose that they had forgotten too. All Wendy had was her memories, and even for her, the line between dreams and reality was rather blurred when that night was in question.  
She lived half in a world of dreams, though, so one more shattered reality surely couldn't hurt.

* * *

"Wendy?"  
Silence.  
"Wendy? Are you there?"  
Nothing.  
"Wendy! Really, you are spending far too much time to yourself recently. Have you no concern for the reputation of this family?"  
George Darling once again banged on his daughters locked bedroom door, his hair stuck to hiatus forehead, his braces loose and a small glass of scotch in his hand.  
Slowly the door opened, revealing a tired looking Wendy, seeming rather worse for wear after discovering she was the object of her father's attention.  
"Father! I was under the assumption that you were attending the Nelson's ball tonight?"  
Mr Darling sighed, taking a gulp of his scotch before setting it down on the ornamental table to the right of the door.  
"Yes, well... Your mother has come down with a headache, so we thought it best not to.. erh.. Look Wendy, we cannot help but notice that so many other girls your age have settled down, or are at least being courted by a gentleman. You have barely left this household in the last few weeks because you are stuck up here writing this damn novel of yours!"  
Wendy felt tension build up slowly in her chest. It had been inevitable for this conversation to come along some time or other.  
"Father! You do not understand, I am so very close to finishing this, and..."  
Mr Darling pursed his lips, "And would you care to tell me what this novel is about exactly? I don't recall you..."  
Wendy took a deep breath. This was a losing battle and she knew it.  
"It is about Neverland father. It is about pirates and mermaids and Peter Pan, and his adventures there!"  
Mr Darling took a deep breath, attempting to compose himself.  
"Oh, don't tell me. There are fairies there too, I suppose?"  
Wendy frowned, "Well there is Tinkerbell, but-"  
"No. I think I have heard enough. Listen, Wendy, Do you realise how hard I have to work to keep up the reputation of this household when you are refusing to attend any kind of public event, and are spending your time parading around as a novelist? An attractive girl like you should be bombarded with suitors, but you simply turn away every one of them! I have had just about enough of this. Do you hear me?"  
Mr Darling's rant had caused quite a spectacle in the household, Mrs Darling and Aunt Millicent, who had coincidentally become a very frequent house guest, mainly in regard of Slightly, who was more commonly known as Simon, had come rushing out of the drawing room panic, both fully aware that after the reasonably large quantity he had had to drink that evening and the mysterious phone call that had seen him storming up to Wendy's room.  
Meanwhile, the boys were never likely to miss out on an argument, especially one as entertaining as Wendy and Father's often were, had all come running out of the nursery in order to pay witness to the apparent commotion taking place down the corridor.  
Alas, however, they were too late. They rounded the corner just in time to see their sister slam the door in the red face of Mr Darling, who, after glaring at it for a good few minutes, turned on his heel and returned downstairs and could be heard appealing to his wife and his mother in law.  
And so, one by one, the boys bid goodnight to Wendy, and tried not to take notice of the gentle sobbing taking place behind their sister's door, before retreating to the nursery, ushered along by Nana.

After she was sure all the boys had returned to the nursery, Wendy stood up from her desk, hesitantly straightened out her night gown, wiped her now red eyes, and after pulling a sheet from her perfectly made bed, sat by the window, and watched the stars.  
"Oh Peter... Where are you?"

* * *

Peter Pan was angry.  
It had been almost two whole hours and he still had yet to hear from his lost boys.  
They weren't nearly as good as the last lot, he decided.  
They were all cowardly and wimpy, and had managed to completely wreck the hideout, which he deemed fairly pointless now, because with Hook dead, the pirates had left Neverland and hadn't been seen since.  
Peter hadn't really thought about it too much, but he did miss them in a sort of way.  
Things had been so different since the Darlings had returned to London.  
He had thought that perhaps it was because they had stolen his lost boys, but the new lot didn't appeal at all to him, and to his utter disgust, he found himself grow less and less interested in wild jungle chases and playing savages with the Indians.  
He began to spend many a day in his private quarters of the den, wallowing in his own self pity.  
One of his lost boys, Toodles, he thought, had remarked that morning that perhaps Peter was growing up, and had sent him into such a fury that they were now out chopping wood and had been for a good portion of the day.  
His old lost boys would never have been so careless as to drop such a ludicrous comment.  
Somehow the Darlings had been different from the other children he had brought to the island.  
They had made him seriously consider growing up and becoming a lawyer or some other silly adult profession.  
He had certainly felt something for them that set them apart from everyone else.  
Perhaps it was the fault of Wendy and her stupid feelings.  
He had not been able to stop replaying the thimble she had given him over and over in his head.  
He didn't like it one bit.  
This sort of emotion was what adults were meant to feel.  
Peter had noticed that he may have grown a bit, but he did not pay much heed to it.  
Growing up was something you chose to do inside.  
As long as he remained true to Neverland in his heart, he would be a boy forever, and always have fun.  
He didn't understand why that prospect didn't seem as inviting to him now.  
"Peter?"  
A small boy was standing in the corner of the doorway, his cheeks rosy with excitement.  
"Peter! The mermaids say that the pirates have been found!"  
Peter frowned, this sort of news was the type that he would have normally rejoiced at hearing, he didn't know what was wrong with him.  
This had to be fixed.  
"Where have they been sighted?"  
The boy grinned, showing a large gap in his teeth.  
"London, Peter."

* * *

Wendy sighed and glared at the reflection in the mirror before her.  
To anyone else, she looked radiant. A hand sewn purple ball gown perfectly showed off her curves and her mother's precious pearls hung around her neck in a most elegant fashion.  
She still wasn't completely sure how her parents had managed to talk her into this.  
The Farley's annual masked ball invitation had come in the mail the previous day, and Wendy had been planning to hide it from her parents at all costs, but to no avail.  
Apparently, the Farley's had felt it necessary to mail to invitations to the house, one for Wendy, and one informing Mrs Darling of the procedure.  
Wendy had managed to wager a fairly decent deal out of it however, and after a roughly hour long debate, Mr Darling had finally agreed to allow Wendy to participate in Mrs Darby's young authors workshop in return for her attendance at the Farley's.  
With one last grimace at how grownup she seemed to look in the mirror, Wendy opened her door, and gracefully descended through staircase.  
She may be going to a most undesirable event, but she could at least do it with class.  
"Oh Wendy! My dear, you look wonderful!"  
Aunt Millicent exclaimed, pulling Wendy tight to her bosom, "You will certainly have the young men lining up tonight! Don't you think so George?"  
Mr Darling smiled at his daughter, a rare look of pride gracing his face. "You look ravishing." he stated, and although Wendy had sworn not to enjoy one moment of this evening, she could not help but return her father's warm gaze.

"Now, we must be off, before nightfall, preferably, or we will catch our death of cold!"  
Aunt Millicent's shrill tone interrupted Wendy's train if thought and put her right back into her resentful mood.  
"Yes, I suppose we must. Mother, Father, I bid you both goodnight, Although I hope to return in not long from now."  
Aunt Millicent giggled and again, in her usual irritating way, remarked, "Well, not if a lucky young man has anything to do with it." before winking at Wendy, who simply gave her a disdainful look, "I plan to return home not long from now, alone and untouched by any man or person of the opposite gender."  
Mrs Darling could sense an argument arising, and began to hurriedly push her daughter and her mother out of the door.  
"Yes, well as you say mother, it is getting awfully late and I'm sure you would hate to miss such an event. Charles is waiting around the back with a carriage. Do hurry."  
And with that she gave them one final shove and, not before adjusting her hair, returned to the drawing room, followed closely by her husband.

The night was fairly cold, Wendy noted, and for some reason the second star to the right shone even brighter than usual, or perhaps that was simply because Wendy was intently focusing on it in an attempt to ignore Aunt Millicent's mindless chatter.

The Farley's manor house certainly was impressive, and Wendy knew that, had John been accompanying them, he would have most definitely remarked on the building's fine stone structure and carvings.

A middle aged couple stood by the door, a rather off putting young man on the right side of the woman Wendy supposed to be Mrs Farley.  
"Miss Darling! How gracious of you to accept our invitation! Frederick has been most excited to wait upon your arrival! Isn't that right, Frederick?"  
She turned to the boy beside her, who, Wendy noted in disdain, looked as though he had been sucking a lemon for the past twenty years of his life.  
"Charmed, I'm sure."  
Frederick took her dainty hand in his rather greasy one and raised it to his lips, his eyes looking over her greedily.  
In alarm, Wendy pulled her hand away rather suddenly, and gripping Aunt Millicent firmly by the elbow, veered her off to the far corner of the ball room.  
"You only wanted me to attend this party so I could meet that slimy toad, didn't you?"  
Aunt Millicent opened her mouth in shock, "Wendy Moira Angela Darling! You will never use language like that in public again do you understand? Especially when referring to the Duke Of Cheshire! I am off to converse with some of the big wig bankers over there, see if I can talk your father up to them. Now, you be a good young lady and never use such childish phrases again, my dear, do you understand?"  
Wendy nodded dutifully but after Aunt Millicent had headed off to talk to the bankers, she let an impish smile grace her lips.  
Peter would have been proud.

* * *

"Are you sure the mermaids got the right location?"  
"Yes, I'm sure, I'm not an idiot."  
"Well that's debatable."  
"Shut up lads!"  
"Yeah, he's right, we're here to find the pirates and battle it out, not bicker like a bunch of babies."  
"Hey who died and made you leader?"  
"He's not leader stupid."  
"Hey, don't kick me!"  
"I ain't done nothing wrong."  
"Peter! Make 'em shut up!"  
Peter had been silent the entire journey from Neverland. As a boy who seeked adventure, his main conquest would be to find Hooks shipmates and challenge them. But the part of him that was grownup was longing to visit Wendy again.  
After his lost boys fell silent, Peter shook his head viciously, attempting to rid himself of these grownup thoughts and feelings and focused on the matter at hand.  
"Where was Smee sighted last?" he demanded.  
The lost boys shared excited grins, sensing adventure, "The Farley manor ball Peter."  
Peter smiled mischievously, this would most certainly get his mind off Wendy.  
"Lads, get dressed up. I think it's time to crash a party."


End file.
